


Downtime

by vix_spes



Series: Who Says Double-0's Have All The Fun [2]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), James Bond - All Media Types
Genre: Established Relationship, Friendship, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2016-09-10
Packaged: 2018-08-14 07:54:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8004580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vix_spes/pseuds/vix_spes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bond and his partner-in-crime Alec Trevelyan are somewhat bemused to discover what the Executive branch of MI6 does in their downtime.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Downtime

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mightypretty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mightypretty/gifts).



> Written for mightypretty who helped me come up with this while on a theatre trip to see the wonderful Rory Kinnear (Tanner)

Bond gave in to the urge to whistle as he headed down into the bowels of MI6. It had been a good mission and he was in a cheerful mood. He’d achieved his objective, he hadn’t been wounded and he’d even managed to come home with all of Q’s tech. The only thing that would put him in an even better mood would be a guaranteed few days off in bed with Q. He’d stopped by Tanner’s office in the hope of getting just that but there had been no sign of Tanner – or any member of the Exec for that matter – so he had headed down to Q-branch, hoping to find Tanner there.  
  
It was a well-known fact amongst MI6 that the Chief of Staff and the Quartermaster were good friends. It was just accepted that, if he should have any free time at all, Tanner would manage to find his way down to Q-branch and Q always made a detour past Tanner’s office when he had a meeting with M. It was a friendship based upon a shared exasperation of the double-0 department and a mutual love of Shakespeare but one that had ultimately been born during their efforts to lure Silva up to Skyfall. Indeed, the friendship between the two of them was so strong that Bond – who had never considered himself to be a possessive lover at all – would be concerned if he didn’t know that Tanner was married to a very lovely (and somewhat formidable) lady who actually worked at MI5. Still, it made Bond feel better knowing that there was someone who could drag Q out of the office and make sure that he was looking after himself when Bond was away on a mission.  
  
Well, that was the theory at least. Bond had quickly discovered that Q’s geekiness was not merely limited to his work and that he was a Shakespeare nerd of the highest calibre, rivalled only by Tanner. Rather than encouraging Q to go home to eat and sleep, Tanner kept Q at Vauxhall with the lure of the Bard. Bond had heard rumours of how the two of them spent their downtime on missions and any free minute acting out various scenes from an assortment of Shakespeare’s plays but he hadn’t really believed it, simply dismissing it as the minions getting overexcited again.  
  
And then he had seen it with his own eyes.  
  
He had come back early from a mission and gone straight to Q-branch, intent on collecting a reward from Q for having brought back the broken pieces of his tech only to find that Q-branch had come to a complete standstill. In the centre of the room stood Q and Tanner acting out the abdication scene from Richard II with Q playing the King while Tanner took the role of Bolingbroke. The two of them were flawless with not even a hesitation as they delivered their lines. Bond had watched in amazement and did his best to watch the two of them whenever he could.  
  
Upon reaching Q-branch, Bond couldn’t help but feel a little disgruntled when not only was there no sign of Tanner but Q was nowhere to be seen. Trying not to remember a similar incident where it had transpired that the Quartermaster and the Chief of Staff had been kidnapped, Bond reassured himself that R was present and the minions were acting as they always did rather than flapping in distress. Making his way to where R stood, Bond took up position leaning against the nearest desk and folded his arms across his chest, silently encouraging the minion currently talking to R to just bloody get on with it. The end result, expectedly, was that the minion in question starting talking so quickly that they ended up babbling and running away before R could actually dismiss them, causing R to turn and face Bond with a rueful smile on her face.  
  
“007, why am I not surprised?”  
  
“My dear R, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”  
  
“Of course you don’t. if you’re here for our eponymous leader then you’re out of luck; the Exec came and swept him off about an hour ago.”  
  
“Ah, okay. Thank you, R.” Bond couldn’t help but feel disappointed and turned to leave, only to be called back by R.  
  
“007? Firecracker on Horseferry Road. Room 3. Take 006 with you; he’s terrorising #5 in lab 2.”  
  
Trusting that R wouldn’t direct him wrongly, Bond did as she suggested and made a detour via lab 2. As R had said, Alec was terrorising minion #5, trying to persuade him that yes, Alec really did need all of these explosives and he was always available to test any new explosives. Bond dragged him out by his ear all the way out of Vauxhall House and into the first taxi idling at the kerb. The name Firecracker meant nothing to either Bond or Trevelyan but, even so, neither of them was prepared to see that Firecracker was not only an Asian fusion bar/restaurant, it was also a karaoke bar.  
  
Given that it was midweek, the place was hardly busy so Bond and Trevelyan slipped into seats at the bar that gave them clear sights of the whole space and all of the exits and ordered a beer apiece, catching up – what they could say out loud and in public – as they drank. While Alec ordered a second round, Bond did some reconnaissance under the pretence of finding the toilets and found room 3 tucked away in one corner as well as the fact that there was only one entrance into the room. Still, he was fairly certain that given the faint traces of music that were seeping through the supposedly soundproof door, the music was loud enough that the occupants wouldn’t hear the door anyway.  
  
Now more curious than ever, he sent Alec a message and less than two minutes later, the other man had joined him. Bond explained what little he knew and, as the music seeping through the door swelled to a crescendo, Bond cracked the door open and the two of them slipped soundlessly inside. Once inside, they were faced with a partition wall which made it even easier to survey the room surreptitiously and the worst singing that Bond had ever heard – and that was saying something considering the number of years that he was at sea. In fact, he thought caterwauling was a far more apt description.  
  
Poking their heads around the wall, they saw that the horrific noise was actually Eve Moneypenny massacring a song that Bond thought was originally sung by Nina Simone and that Q, M and Tanner were gathered around a table that boasted an impressive collection of empty glasses and bottles.  
  
The two of them watched for as long as they could before one note – which sounded more like a squawk than the rest – had them ducking behind the partition wall, lips pressed together and shoulders shaking almost uncontrollably with suppressed laughter. Once the two of them had recovered themselves sufficiently, they resorted to a combination of lip-reading and hand signs to express their incredulity that they had found something that Eve Moneypenny could not do and speculate as to whether the rest of the Exec were going to be singing. It was also at that point that Alec waved his hand surreptitiously, revealing that he had been recording proceedings on his phone since they had entered the room. Bond gave a shark-like grin, even as he wished that he had been the one to do it.  
  
Whereas Moneypenny’s attempts had been cringe worthy at best and downright dire at worst, the rest of the Exec were considerably better. Both Bond and Trevelyan hovered out of sight, jaws dropping more than a little as they listened to M croon his way through a selection of Rat Pack songs, Tanner gave a performance of Mack the Knife that belied his usual mild-mannered persona and Q outdid them all with a selection of Elvis numbers. Bond had known that his lover could hold a tune – Q had sung snatches of songs in the shower often enough – but he hadn’t heard him like this and a sneak peek around the wall confirmed that, yes, Q was accompanying his singing with some loose-hipped moves that had Bond feeling a little hot under the collar.  
  
Q had just finished singing when Bond’s phone buzzed in his hand. Unlocking it and cringing as artificial light filled the space, Bond read the message that he had received.  
  
 _You have three days off with the Quartermaster if you leave now. T_  
  
Bond was just shoving Alec towards the door when his phone buzzed a second time and he spared it a glance as they slipped out, almost walking straight into a waitress as they did so.  
  
 _Tell anyone about this and they will never find your bodies. M_  
  
Bond grinned and slung an arm around Alec's shoulder as they left the building. They had just hailed a cab when Bond's buzzed a third time.  
  
 _If you can get Alec to delete the evidence I’ll give you a repeat performance. Naked. Q_

**Author's Note:**

> If you would prefer to comment on LJ, you can do so [here](http://vix-spes.livejournal.com/252975.html)


End file.
